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WHICH 



American Unity, or 

British Domination? 



Memorial Address at Antrim, N. H., May 30, 1893. 



BY HENRY B. ATHERTON OF NASHUA, N. H. 



Price paid to Preserve the Union. 

Comrades and Friends : 

In the war for the Union New Hamp- 
shire had 33,937 enlisted men, or, reduced 
to a three years' standard 30,849. That 
was more tban 10 per cent, of our whole 
population, and more than half of the 
male population between the ages of 18 
and 45. In other words one out of every 
9.6 men, women and children, or one for 
every two households in the state, en- 
listed in defence of the Union. Of this 
number 4,882 or 16.7 per cent, died in 
the service. There were killed or mortally 
wounded 1963 or 6.5 per cent, a percen- 
tage of killed exceeded by only two 
states, Vermont and Pennsylvania. 

The total number enrolled in the Un- 
ion army wa? 2,326,168 and of them 
110,070, or 4.7 per cent, were killed or 
died of their wounds. The deaths in the 
service from all causes was 359,528 or 15.4 
per cent. Thus it will be seen that when 
a man volunteered for the suppression of 
the rebellion he took one chance in 20 of 
being killed in battle and one chance in 
6 of dying in the service. 

The average age of the men in the Un- 
ion army was 25 years. Of those who 
successfully passed their medical exam- 
ination at enlistment the average expec- 
tation of life was 40 years. Here was a 
shortening of his life by 40 years of each 
one of 359,528 men who died in the ser- 
vice, or a loss, taken collectively, of 14,- 
381,120 years of human life, to say noth- 
ing of those who died of disease or 
wounds after their discharge. 

To each one of these life was as sweet 
as to you or me. This was the price our 
fallen comrades paid for the restoration 
of the Union. By the side of this appall- 
ing sacrifice of human life, the destruc- 
tion of property and the waste of treas- 
ure sink into insignificance. Even the 
annual disbursement for pensions to the 
survivors and to the widows and depen- 
dent relatives of those who died, about 
which there is now so much patriotic, 



not to say political, concern and anxiety, 
dwindles to nothing in comparison. 
Nobody is conscious of any sacrifice in 
making those payments. If anybody's 
property or income is diminished by it, 
the loss IS imperceptible to him. Our 
comrades gave 14,391,120 years of their 
lives that we might individually and 
collectively as a people have the pros- 
perity we now enjoy. 

I have spoken only of those who died 
in the service. Others of our comrades 
also made sacrifices; some in impaired 
health and shortened lives and the con- 
sequent inabiliiy to provide for them- 
selves and their families as they other- 
wise might. Some left school and gave 
up the hope of a higher education. Many 
lost the opportunity to make for them- 
selves fortunes, as those who remained at 
home could do, in trade, manufactures or 
finance. They lost also in many cases the 
chance for political preferment. This 
may be contrary to the general impres- 
sion and seems a little singular in a state 
where patriotism was never at a dis- 
count. A glance at some of the state 
offices fi^lled since 1861 will I think 
sustain the statement. Of 372 state 
senators chosen in that period 
I recognize the names of only about a 
dozen who were in the service; of 17 
speakers of the house only two; of 24 
presidents of the senate, none; of six at- 
torney generals, one; of ten railroad com- 
missioners, none; of 45 councillors, only 
three or four; of 19 appointments to the 
bench of the supreme and supreme judi- 
cial courts, one; and of 17 governors, only 
two. And yet it will hardly be claimed 
that the 46 per cent, of the men of a mil- 
itary age in New Hampshire who,through 
physical infirmity or from prudential 
reasons remained at home, had on an av- 
erage more ability, character or patriot- 
ism than the 54 per cent, who went to the 
front. Thus in this state at least, it 
seems that the [opportunity for political 
preferment was another sacrifice which 
the public spirited volunteer made when 
he enlisted. 



AMERICAN UNITV OK BRITISH DOMIXATION? 



There were many minor personal in- 
conveniences and hardships also which he 
was called upon to undergo. He relin- 
quished the comforts of home, the com- 
panionship of friends, the freedom of 
civil life and voluntarily took upon him- 
self the deprivations of a life in camp and 
on the march, and a ready submission to 
the command of his superior officers. He 
underwent exposure to heat and cold, to 
rain and snow, miasma and.disease under 
conditions where he could do but little to 
protect himself. 

Was it Worth the Cost ? 
Looking back after the lapse of thirty 
years, was it our duty to do what in our 
old time enthusiasm we then believed it 
was? Was the preservation of the Amer- 
ican Union worth all the sacrifice, all 
the waste of treasure and human life 
which it cost? Was that war for freedom 
and humanity worth fighting? The gov- 
ernment of tue United States could have 
chosen the other alternative and permit- 
ted state after state at the South to se- 
cede. We could have recognized the in- 
dependence of the new Confederacy, the 
corner stone of which, according to Alex- 
ander H. Stephens its vice president, was 
human slavery. We could pusillani- 
mously have abandoned the border states 
and treachously have turned our backs 
upon the Union men of the South. We 
might have permitted the dismember- 
ment of this Union and consented to the 
peaceful establishment of a rival govern- 
ment within its limits. If we had waited 
until the new Confederacy was well or- 
ganized, armed, and fortified, with a full- 
treasury and possibly a strong foreign 
alliance, and it had then demanded the 
territories and the Prcific slope for the 
further extension of slavery, we should 
have been still less able to resist these de- 
mands of the Confederacy grown strong 
and powerful. The aggressions of the 



possessing the same common law, th( 
same literature and history, broken intc 
two or more fragments with separatt 
governments and rival and con- 
flicting interests, ready to fly at each 
others throats on the slightest provoca- 
tion and each always a prey to the politi- 
cal interference and intrigues of any 
foreign power, which In order to divide 
and conquer us might desire to make the 
separation between the sections perma- 
nent. We should see a row of custom 
houses and military posts along the 
Chesapeake, the Ohio, the Missouri, across 
the plains and over the mountains to the 
Pacific along an imaginary line between 
two rival and antagonistic states. 

The inland commerce of the western 
rivers would be passing through foreign 
territory to reach the Gulf or the Atlan- 
tic. The people would be supporting the 
burden of two governments where 
but one exists. To this would be added 
the expense of vast standing armies, 
in Europe, in which the men would -^erve 
while the women tilled the fields. Two 
navies would be needed each larger than 
the one we now have. The car of prog- 
ress would be halted. The hands on the 
dial of time would move downward show- 
ing that the mid day of the world's 
civilization had passed. Retrogression 
would be the order of the day. Liberty 
would take flight, free institutions 
would cease to exist and that state whose 
corner stone was the hideous wrong of 
chattel slavery would soon elevate to 
power the despot and tyrant. 

But this country could not be thus di- 
vided and continue half free and half 
pro-slavery, half on the pathway of mod- 
ern civilization and half incorporating 
the barbarism of slavery and gradually 
reverting to monarchy or some form of 
absolute government. It is more than 
probable that in the North, also, human 



South would have become every day more ^^®^<^o™ and the rights of the individual 

'"■" . • - ■ \yould at last be sacrificed, the 

light of civilization become obscure and 
the hopes of the oppressed and down- 
trodden everywhere die out. 

As this country could not remain half 
slave and half free so it could not long 
continue half Confederate and half Union. 
The spirit of secession, let loose and given 
free rein, all respect for written statutes 
and constitutions would cease. Selfish 
interest, unreasoning prejudice, momen- 
tary impulse would rise superior to the 
law. Personal differences would be per- 
petuated in Corsican vendettas and Ken- 
tucky feuds. Lynch law, illegal shooting 
and hanging, torture and burning alive 
ar yet to 'be ^^ recently practiced in the South might 
would not be a fevail and thus, imperceptibly perhaps 
but none the less certainly, conduct so- 
ciety backward to the horrid cruelties 
and fiendish barbarism of the medieval 
persecutions. 



md more insolent and overbearing, until 
the remaining fragment of the old Union 
had been either ingloriously subjugated, 
or at last, when shorn of territory, treas- 
ure and men, it would have been go«ded 
into armed resistance to these encroach- 
ments. In the latter event it would have 
been war at last with the odds against 
the Union cause greatly increased by the 
delay. 

Kven if this latter alternative had been 
averted to the present time, and we, too 
timid to assert our rights and too cow- 
ardly to do our duty, had deferred the 
iHHue for a generation and left 
children, with our tarnished 
divided heritage and 
waged, the situation 
pleasant one for us to contemplate. 
The Other Alt«rnallv«>. 

We should now behold one people of the 
same descent.speuking the same language, 



to our 
honor. 



Instead of a comparatively short, sharp 



AMERICAN UNITY OR BRITISH DOMINATIONS 



I and decisive conflict in the beginning, as 
the war for the Union really was, we 

, should have entailed for ourselves and 
our children after us an interminable 
struggle growing each year more barbar- 
ous in its character. Possibly in the 
North, as already in the South, the bal- 
lot, as the expression of the will of a sov- 
ereign people would no longer be held 
sacred, and fraud and force, false counts 
and the shot gun would usurp its place. 
Elections would be carried by fear and 

I intimidation, until elections even in form 
would be no longer held, and a score of 
military tyrants, under the guise of seek- 
ing to preserve order, would hold place 
and power as the result of successful revo- 
lution. 

Our Present Prosperity. 

Hold your gaze for a moment on this 
dark picture of what might have been in 
order that you may the more clearly real- 
ize what our comrades did for the wel- 
fare of this people — that by the contrast 
you may the more distinctly see the bles- 
sings secured to the inhabitants of this 
country by the successful prosecution of 
the war for the Union. 
j Look now on the American Union pre- 
I served— 65,000,000 of people at peace with 
I one another and all the world — each one 
free to pursue his own honest calling in 
his own waj' — peace and plenty within 
our borders— the hand of this free gov- 
ernment resting so lightly upon us that 
we cannot feel it — no honest man afraid 
of the civil power^ — every branch of hu- 
man industry multiplying ana ejsiending 
— education diffused and reaching further 
and further every year — a broad belt of 
fertile territory extending from ocean to 
ocean through the temperate zone, with 
every variety of climate and production 
that civilized man can desire — separated 
by thousands of miles of trackless ocean 
from the great military powers of 
Europe. 

It would seem that here and now 

the highest problems in self-government 

and civilization are to be wrought out 

1 to a successful issue. No where else and 

i at no other time from the very nature of 

things can the conditions be so favorable. 

A free country where every man has fair 

play and equal opportunity. The love of 

liberty has invited the best of all lands to 

our shores. The dismal exception now 

and again only proves the general rule. 

They come educated by labor, instructed 

by travel, animated and impelled by a love 

of free institutions, they expect here to 

better their condition. When they reach 

our shores the yoke is lifted from their 

1 necks. They are no longer the personal 

I thralls of mercenary lords or lordlings. 

I They are no longer subjected to time- 

I honored abuses or the tyranny of ancient 

privilege. When their feet touch Ameri- 

\ can soil the hideous nightmare which 



tends to cramp body and soul in the old 
world is dispelled. 

The Look Ahead 

Here on this continent we are building 
up a mighty and masterful race, superior 
to any the world has ever yet produced. 
The American of the future we may be- 
lieve, will unite in himself the best char- 
acteristics of all the superior races — the 
administrative power of the Norman — the 
fidelity of the Teuton, the battle fury of 
the Celt as well as his poetic imagination 
— the love of fair play of the Englishman 
united to the sturdy good sense of the 
Scotsman, and a physique correspond- 
ingly superior to all who have gone be- 
fore — sound minds in sound bodies, 
"mens sana in corpore sano." 

With a population thus composed, 
which increases a hundred fold every 
twenty- five years, some of you now liv- 
ing may expect to see a hundred and fif- 
ty millions of inhabitants in this country, 
and the grandchildren of our grandchil- 
dren, a population as great as that of the 
whole world today — or reckoning safely 
enough that this territory can sustain a 
population one half as dense as that of 
Belgium, our grandchildren will live to 
see here a people numbering seven hun- 
dred millions. 

A recent brilliant French writer says of 
America, "in fifty years she will have 
more than two hundred millions of in- 
habitants. If during that time Europe 
makes progress only in the arts and sci- 
ences, while the social condition of its 
nations does not improve, she will be to 
America what barbarism is to civiliza- 
tion." This is not the exaggeration of a 
poet's vision nor the wild dream of an 
optimist, but the sober conclusion of a 
thoughtful observer. 

So far as we can conjecture or the hu- 
man mind can conceive, only those three 
scourges of the human race, famine, pes- 
tilence or war, can prevent the fulfilment 
of this forecast. 

As to the danger of any widespread 
famine, our fertile soil and the great va- 
riety of its products, and our facili- 
ties for their quick transportation, 
coupled with our individual intelligence, 
prosperity and self control, make the 
peril from that source remote indeed. 
We have long since passed that stage in 
our development as a people when we 
could reasonably apprehend danger from 
that source. 

What the future has in store for us in 
the nature of pestilence no human mind 
can forsee. A comparatively harmless 
appearing influenza may become as fatal 
as Asiatic cholera or threaten the distruc- 
tion of the population of the whole globe. 
We can imagine such a possibility. But 
with the spread of education and its 
thousand civilizing influences, with the 
constant improvement both in sanitary 



AMERICAN UNITV OR BRITISH DOMINATION r 



and hj'gienic conditions, and in the 
knowledge of disease and the healing art, 
and with our remarkably healthful cli- 
mate, we have little to fear from any 
wide spread or long continued pestilence. 



But of war who can say? Because to- 
day the sun shines are we to believe the 
storm will never come? The millenHium 
however much we may wish it, has not 
yet dawned. The lamb cannfct yet lie 
down with the lion in any degree of 
safety to the lamb. Europe does not 
support the almost intolerable burden of 
her vast standing armies for the pleasure 
of it. When in the midst of that im- 
mense powder magazine some sceptered 
hand shall ruthlessly strike the spark 
that will spread desolation far and wide, 
when Europe is again reeking with 
carnage and slaughter, what guarranty 
have we that our own country may not 
become involved? 

As often at least as once in a genera- 
tion this people thus far have engaged in 
war, so that from father to son each gen- 
eration in turn has had the opportunity 
to thus offer that supreme service to their 
country. We helped to put down the Re- 
bellion. Our fathers fought England in 
1812. Their fathers again fought Eng- 
land in the war of the Revolution to 
establish an independent Continental 
power in North America. Such a govern- 
ment was established but it fell short of 
the original design because it failed to 
embrace the whole continent. The 
French settlements on the St. Lawrence 
under the control of their bishop de- 
clined to unite their fortunes with those 
of the young Republic. The fathers of 
the Revolutionary heroes fought for Con- 
tinental unity in the French and Indian 
wars. Frequently the same generation 
has served in more than one war. Stark 
learned something of the art of war as a 
prisoner under his Indian captors in 
Canada, later, as one of Rogers' Rangers in 
the French war, before he commanded a 
regiment of New Hampshire troops at 
Hunker Hill or led the Green Mountain 
Boys at Bennington. Scott fought in the 
war of 1812, the Mexican war, and lived to 
take a part in the opening scenes of the 
war Tor the Union. 

1 remember meeting in the service at 
Alexandria during the Rebellion an 
artilleryman who had served In Ringold's 
famous battery in the Mexican war. 
His service, I recollect, in the land of the 
Montezumas had developed a peculiar 
and rather startling kind f)f patriotism 
as exhibited in his oaths. Cnlike the 
(Jroeks who swore "by all the gods at 
once," hJH deities were exclusively 
of this Continent. Apparently his 
favorite oath was "By the great North 
American Jehovah." In his mind Jeho- 
vah was as much the peculiar deity of the 



northern portion of this continent as he 
had been originally of the Hebrews, and 
evidently to him the whole United State? 
was "God's country" as was the loyal 
section of it to the prisoner in Anderson - 
ville or Salisbury. While I deprecated 
his profanity I had a hearty respect for 
his continental patriotism. 

In the usual course of events sufficient 
time has elapsed for this people to be 
again engaged in war. But for the valor 
which you, my comrades, and others like 
you displayed on many a well fought 
field this nation would have been again 
engaged in war long before now. In- 
deed it is not probable that the Alabama 
claims would ever have been arbitrated 
or paid by England had there not been A 
million or more disci^jlined soldiers in 
this country at the time. Even as it was 
a large section of the Tory' party were 
eager to fight. Wo have another arbitra- 
tion on hand now but the situation is 
changed. Grant and Sherman and SCeri- 
dan are dead.. We should not be,ivt)r'th 
so much in offensive military operations 
as we were twenty-five years ago but I 
think one or two hundred thousand dis- 
ciplined men could still be fomid who. 
would volunteer to do the state some ser- 
vice in case any of the great powers 
should attempt the invasion of this 
country. 

According to the statisticians the 
United States has more wealth than Great 
Britain, hitherto regarded the_^ealthiest 
country in the world, and we have nearly 
double her population. But undefended 
wealthi invites to attack and nobody 
knows better than you who were in the 
service that a thousand well drilled 
soldiers are more than a match for a. mob 
of ten thousand untrained rupn". An 
efficient army, modern fortifications, guns 
and battle ships necessary for the nation- 
al defense cannot be improvised in a day. 
Unbounded wealth will not do it; an im- 
mense population is insurticient. It takes- 
the element of time to transform the raw 
recruit into a soldier and to chaiige 
money into ships and forts. Such guns 
as Krupp makes and the English have on 
some of their forts that will carry a "pro- 
jectile twelve or fourteen miles it takes a 
year to build. It takes two or three years 
to build a battle ship. We have a few 
arined cruisers that compare favorably 
with anything afloat. We shall have 
more soon and a battle ship or two so 
necessary for defence. We have none yet. 
Our regular army is small, hardly suflB- 
cient to keep in subjection a few hostile 
Indians and anarchists, but answering 
very well for police purposes. We have as 
yet no coast defences worth mentioning. 
A few old fashioned stone forts and tor- 
pedo boats will hardly suffice to protect 
our ten thousand miles of coast, and on 
our four thousand miles of northern 
frontier we have no defences at all. 



AMERICAN UNITY OR BRITISH DOMINATION? 



The prospect of an offensive war on our 
part under such circumstances against 
any of the first -class powers of 
the earth is remote indeed — as remote as 
the prospect of pestilence or famine. As 
yet we are in no condition to wage such a 
war. We cannot in the words of Bis- 
mark <<strike the striker" nor "insult the 
insulter." Should Germany, for in- 
stance, smite us on one cheek we may in 
a spirit of Christian humility (making a 
virtue of our necessity) turn the other 
also. We can spare no vessels to send 
against her shores, we have no coaling 
stations and no great lines of subsidized 
steam ships as the English have, which 
we could take to transport troops across 
the Atlantic. We could pocket the in- 
sult no matter how great to our people 
or flag. If Germany had a foothold on 
this continent we might possibly be able 
to strike back, resent the injury and 
protect our honor, but with no such op- 
pdrtonily for reprisals, we should find 
tb'e^cean too wide for our guns and our 
ships. On the other hand neither Ger- 
many nor any other great power without 
territory qn thisside of the Atlantic to 
serve-as a base of operations, will alone 
be likely to b/eak the peace. We shall 
not be likely to give them provocation. 
Our mercantile marine engaged in ocean 
transportation is not, as yet, large enough 
to tempt their fleets. They might de- 
stroy our coasting trade and devastate 
our seajports but without a secure base 
"of operations here, Germany alone could 
not expect to conquer and hold any of 
our territory. 

With France it might have been differ- 
ent had the France of Louis Napoleon 
succeeded in; establishing a "Latin em- 
pire" ij» Mexico under the ill-fated Max- 
imillian. Mexico might then have 
proved a dangerous neighbor to our 
southern border. But that scion of the 

"Hapsburgs found North America a cold 
place for planting hostile Latin empires 

• and sacrificed his life to the chimerical 
Irtlea. The France of Lafayette and Carnot, 
Republican France, has always been 
friendly to the United States. It was 
France under the son of the Dutch ad- 
miral "Napoleon the Little" that was so 
urgent to have England unite with her 
in recognizing the Confederacy. 

Russia a Friend in Need. 
From Russia, with her immense army 
and magnificent navy, our countrj- has 
nothing to fear. Russia has never made 
war on the United States, and, although 
we are neighbors in Behring's Sea, she 
never will. True, Russia is not a repub- 
lic and her populations are not yet pre- 
pared for that, but what Caesar did for 
the civilization of the world in pushing 
back the frontier of barbarism to the 
Rhine, what Charles the Great did in 
still further carrying back that frontier 



to the Vistula, that the descendants of 
Ruric have done in subjugating the 
Mongol hordes, which at one time 
threatened the very existence of 
European civilization, and in forcing 
back the frontier of barbarism 
over the Urals and across Siberia to the 
Pacific on one line, and beyond the Cas- 
pian and across hostile Turkestan to 
the borders of Afghanistan and India, on 
another. Russia has more than once 
been our friend in need. Do you remem- 
ber one time during the war seeing a 
Russian fleet in the Potomac? That was 
when Louis Napoleon and the Tory min- 
istry of England contemplated recogniz- 
ing the Southern Confederacy and it was 
believed that such recognition was in- 
tended to lead to armed intervention 
against the Union cause. We had enough 
to do then to fight. the rebels without 
having France and England J9in them 
against us. Then, if any cause ever 
needed a strong and fearless friend, ours 
did. Russia was that friend. It is now 
an open secret that in case Louis Napo- 
leon and Tory England should make a 
hostile demonstration against us the ad- 
miral of the Russian fleet was to report 
for orders to Abraham Lincoln. By rea- 
son of the ties of kindred, race, literature, 
common history and all that, we love our 
good cousin John Bull as we are in duty 
and sentiment bound to do, but when we 
know that he is seeking to crush the life 
out of the republic, the armed Muscovite 
at our elbow is a more "cheering sight to 
see." 

It is thought by some that Russia 
ceded to us her vast American possessions 
in Alaska and the waters and islands 
of Behring's sea simply for the seven mil- 
lions dollars which Mr. Seward paid her 
but I hazard the opinion that the ces- 
sion was made not for the paltry price we 
paid but rather to serve notice on all the 
world that in the view of the "White 
Czar" all the territory of North America 
from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic 
Ocean should rightfully be controlled by 
the United States. 

This government sustains friendly re- 
lations toward all the other 
American states. By our main- 
tainance of the Monroe doctrine 
they well know that they obtain all the 
advantages of a defensive alliance with us 
with no corresponding risk to them- 



£nsland Our only Probable Foe. 

Apparently the only source oflEhe dan- 
gers which may come to us in the shape 
of war to mar our general prosperity and 
retard the wheels of our national pro- 
gress is England — England the mother 
country — England our ancient foe, who 
in two wars has tried to cripple us — Eng- 
land, our rival in commerce and manu- 
factures, who taking advantage of our 



AMERICAN UNITY OR BRITISH DOMINATION 



dire distress while engaged in a life and 
death struggle, helped with Confederate 
rams and cruisers to destroy our ocean 
commerce, supplanting it with her own, 
and now by her subsidized lines across 
the continent and on the Pacific, is using 
every effort to get control of 
our internal trans-continental traffic. 
Has England the means, has she the 
purpose, on occasion, to make war on 
this country? 

In these days of modestly lowering the 
American flag for fear of intrusion upon 
the ancient domain of our great rival, 
or through hesitation as to the ability of 
this nation properly to rule a few thous- 
and Hawaiians, or to hold on to the little 
possession when once acquired, it is well 
to consider for a moment the position 
and attitude of Great Britain. 

"There is no timid or incompetent 
race," says a recent able writer, "on 
whom she has not rained a storm of 
bullets in the name of liberty and 
progress. In Asia, today, with her bay- 
onets steadily pointed at the native and 
rightful possessors of the soil, she holds 
India and Punjab, Burmah and the 
Rangoon, the Malayan Peninsula, Ceylon, 
Singapore, Hong Kong and Rowloon, 
while every day her intention to seize 
Canton and to overrun Corea is manifested 
in umistakable acts of aggression. At 
Bombay, at Calcutta, at Ceylon, at Singa- 
pore, at Labuan and at Hong Kong she 
maintains naval and coaling stations 
from which she keeps the half-civilized 
natives of Southern Asia forever familiar 
with the black muzzles of her guns and 
the ominous odor of her powder. 

In Africa, with Egypt curbed and 
fettered, and both sides of the Arabian 
Gulf garrisoned, with a dozen groups of 
little islands in the Arabian sea and a 
dozen more in the Indian Ocean protec- 
ting her route to India ana the South 
Seas, she holds four times the territory of 
the British Islands. By making con- 
stant wars on the natives, she "protects" 
the entire country drained by the 
Nile, save only where it runs through the 
desert. 

There are souls to save and ignorant 
minds to teach in the deserts as around 
the water courses, but no ivory. British 
civilizing processes keep closely to the re- 
gion where ivory can be obtained coinci- 
dentally with the progress of religious 
and other reforms. In the south of 
Africa English possessions include Bech- 
uana Land, Natal and Cape Colony, a ter- 
ritory three times as great as the thirteen 
original states. Zanzibar and Mauritius 
also owe allegiance to England, and on 
the west coast, with outposts at Ascen- 
sion, St. Helena and Ichabod Islands. 
English dominion reaches over Canara 
land, the gold coast and Layos, Sierra 
Leone and Bathurst with vast interior 
stretches on both sides of the Niger. 



Around this continent and including the 
mighty defences at Gibralter, Malta and 
Aden, the British flag flies above eleven 
naval and coaling stations where gani- 
sons and stores are maintained. f 

In the South seas British empire spreads I 
over immense oceans and holds almost 
every dot of land that rises above them. | 
With, Australia, almost equal in area - 
and productive capacity to the United 
States, as the base of power, il includes a 
part of Borneo, a part of New Guinea, 
Tasmania, New Zealand and no less than 
twenty-five groups of smaller islands to 
the south and west of Hawaii, besides 
Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador and 
the Arctic lands. English dominion on 
and near the American continent is ex- 
erted over the Bermudas, the Bahamas, 
Jamaica, the Belize, British Guiana, 
Trinidad, Barbadoes, San Lucia and 'the 
Leeward Islands. 

When Canada confederated in 1867. the 
fortress of Halifax was in a condition of 
decay and could not have rtsisted the 
guns of a third-class gunboat. Today 
Halifax is inpreguable. It is an imperial 
military and naval station. The nucleus 
of an array is kept within its fortresses, 
which are mounted with the most formi- 
dable batteries. Bermuda, three days 
out from Charleston and New York, is 
equipped with fortifications, which are 
described in the 'Colonial Year Book' as 
the 'most perfect and formidable in the 
world.' A submarine cable connects the 
fortress at Bermuda with Halifax. It 
was laid only two years ago, and it cost 
fl, 500, 000, a sum ten times greater than 
the exchanges between the group and 
Canada. In the reef enclosed harbor of 
Bermuda Great Britain has a ship build- 
ing plant, a dry dock that will lift her 
heaviest seagoing battle ships, a coaling 
station and a vast system of earth works, 
mounted with the heaviest guns. Great 
Britain, since 1867, has immensely 
strengthened the garrison at Kingston 
and created an entirely new one in the 
harbor of Castries, San Lucia. Taking 
Halifax, Bermuda, Kingston and Castries 
together, a chain of offensive fortifica- 
tions is constituted within three days 
reach of every American Atlantic sea- 
board city. Each is mounted with guns 
of the most effective modern type. Each 
is capable of equipping vessels for sea at 
an instant's notice. A cable connects 
them all with each other and with London. ^ 
A telegram from the British foreign of- | 
fice could send vessels of war from Hali- 
fax to Boston in twenty- four hours, from , 
Halifax to New York in two days, from \ 
Bermuda to New York, or Washington, 
or Baltimore, or Charleston, or Philadel- 
phia in three day, or from Jamaica to 
New Orleans in three days, or from 
Jamaica to Greytown or Panama in two 
days, and from St. Lucia to Panama or 
Greytown in four days. On one of the 



AMERICAN UNITY OR BRITISH DOMINATION, 



Falkland Islands, just north and east of 
Cape Horn, there is a British coaling sta- 
tion. At Sydney Australia there is an- 
other. There is a third recently built 
and equipped and splendidly armed at 
the Fiji Islands, and the great de- 
fenses at Esquimault, from which at 
an hour's notice Seattle and Ta- 
coma could be laid waste. 

England has guns, forts, coast defences, 
naval stations, the largest navy in the 
world, which she intends to keep equal to 
that of France and Russia combined, or 
of any other two nations. She has a 
great many swift steamers for the trans- 
portation of troops and munitions of war, 
on her subsidized commercial lines, which 
vessels she can call for at any moment; 
' more than all this, she has a foothold on 
this continent such as no other nation 
has, a province extending along our un- 
protected northern frontier for three or 
four thousand miles. She has a military 
railway from Halifax on the Atlantic to 
Port Moody on the Pacific, intended to be 
used in military operations against this 
country, and on that account built in a 
great measure from the imperial treasury. 
She has free entry for her fleets to the St. 
Lawrence, through which flow the waters 
of the great lakes. From her fortress at 
Halifax she could let slip a swarm of ar- 
mored cruisers that in forty -eight hours 
might ruin our coasting trade, devastate 
our Atlantic coast and lay our unprotect- 
ed sea coast under contribution. She 
has a similar coign of vantage on the Pa- 
cific at Esquimault. 

As for men there once were English 
yeomen; they no longer exist, and the 
toilers in her mines and mills, or the "ag- 
ricultural laborer " cannot make good 
their place in war, neither can she rely 
for recruits upon such a popula- 
tion as that of the east end of London. 
She will call upon Scotland and Ireland 
and her colonies for men. She has been 
known to hire Hessians in an emergency. 
Disraeli once threatened Europe with the 
Sepoy. 

When our ships rode the ocean, she 
has even been known to look longingly 
to us for help. In 1852 when war men- 
aced England, her great poet laureate 
sung: 

"Gigantic daughter of the West, 

We drink to thee across the flood. 
We know thee, and we love thee best, 

For art thou not of British blood? 
Should War's mad blast again be blown, 

Permit not thou the tyrant powers 
To fight thy mother here alone. 

But let thy broadsides roar with ours. 

Hands all round! 
God the tyrant's cause confound: 
To our dear kinsmen of the West, my friends. 
And the great name of England, round and 
round. 

Oh rise, our strong Atlantic sons, 
When war against our freedom springs, 

Oh speak to England through your guns 
They can be understood by kings." 



I like the sound of that, a noble senti- 
ment. In her extremity and apparently 
without friends the British lion "roars 
you as gently as a sucking dove." But 
when the hour of our peril came, how 
different the tune which the British 
Tories sung. 

Then it was the England that met our 
fathers at Bunker Hill and Bennington, 
at Hubbardton and Bemis Heights, at 
Trenton and Yorktown, at Lundy's Lane 
and New Orleans. 

Whether the rulers of England have 
the inclinations to go to war with the 
United States or not they have not an- 
nounced. They have the means and their 
acts speak. What England does is ap- 
parent. With her fortified harbors, her 
military railways and her armored ships 
all in such uninvited proximity, she de- 
liberately prepares for war. The ruling 
party in Canada have appeared anxious to 
precipitate such a contest, first by an- 
noying and needlessly harrassing our 
fishermen on the coast of the maritime 
provinces, and later by invading Behring 
sea with an apparently deliberate purpose 
of exterminating our fur-bearing seals. 
Russia gave us a warranty deed of that 
section and according to Mr. Lothrop, 
late minister to that country, in the 
event of a trial by wager of battle 
is quite willing to be voached in to 
maintain her covenant of warranty. 
Another Russian fleet in the Potomac 
would be more reassuring than to behold 
the English there again burning the 
Capitol as they did in the war of 1812. 
Canadian Annexation Necessary to the Na- 
tional Defence. 

If the gentlemen who manage the public 
affairs of the Dominion succeed in bring- 
ing about war between England and the 
United States it may not prove an un- 
mixed evil. It might result in securing 
the independence of Canada from Great 
Britain. However lightly English states- 
men speak of the subject of Canadian in- 
dependence or annexation to this coun- 
try as a thing wholly indifferent to the 
mother country, they are hardly sin- 
cere. Nobodv now believes England 
will allow Canada to go in peace. Should 
Canada make the attempt the batteries 
aimed at us would be turned against her. 
Then again such a war might result in 
the annexation of Canada to the United 
States, As a measure of permanent na- 
tional defence such a result would be de- 
sirable for us. 

From the time of the French and In- 
dian wars, through the wars of the Revo- 
lution and of 1812 even down to the St. 
Alban's raid, Canada has always furnished 
the enemy a base of operations against 
us, England or any other great power in 
possession of Canada can always strike us 
in flank. "Esquimault," says a 

British officer, "holds a loaded pistol at 

the head of San Francisco," The thing is 



10 



AMHKICAN UNITY Oil BRITISH DOMINATION 



irksome and we have tndured it too long. 
If we had only been in a condition to as- 
sert our rights we should long ago have 
demanded of Great Britain to cease her 
offensive military preparations upon our 
borders and if she refused we could then 
have precipitated the war and captured 
the country before her preparations were 
completed. It is obvious that these offen- 
sive armaments are meant for us and that 
no other country is their object. Eng- 
land, by the possession of Canada,threat- 
ens the United States, as by the posses- 
sion of Gibraltar she dominates the shores 
of the Mediterranean and becomes a 
standing menace to all southern Europe. 
As we fought for the preservation of 
the Union, so, in such a war, our sons 
would fight for American unity. To par- 
aphrase the words of Abraham Lincoln, 
when, as yet the country was but dimly 
conscious of the nearness of the impend- 
ing crisis, North America cannot remain 
half American and half British, either it 
will become all American or all British. 
"We inhabit one country. The line of 
separation is an imaginary one — a fool's 
line, as Mr. Murray calls it. The St. 
Lawrence and the grt^at lakes should not 
only be used by one people, they should 
also be owned by one power. One cannot 
expect the sixty-five millions of this coun- 
try to go over to the five millions of Can- 
ada and with them become tributary to 
the thirty-eight millions of Great Britain. 
There was a time in 1760 when these two 
countries and all English speaking peo. 
pie owed allegiance to Great Britain alone. 
For years before that, during the long 
wars between England and her colonies 
on one side, and France and her colonies 
on the other, France had continually 
threatened these English settlements on 
the Atlantic coast, and sent down her sol- 
diers and her Indians to make war on us, 
to burn our dwellings and tomahawk our 
women and children. We captured the 
great French strongholds Louisbourg, 
Quebec and Montreal, and terminated the 
power of France on this continent. In 
doing this work we were assisted by Eng- 
land to be sure, but our fathers furnished 
twenty-five thousand men, by far the 
heaviest contingent. By their action we 
gained some right to a voice in the dis- 
posal of the territory of North America. 

In 1760 there were 60,000 French in 
Canada. Their descendants now number 
2,400,000. 

The marquis of Lome, the late Governor 
General, says they will not amalgamate 
with us, that they, separated by a cen- 
tury and a half from France, and nevi r 
having known England, will not become 
American, but preferring the cold climate 
and poor soil of the territory about Lake 
St. John, will locate there and establish 
a distinctly French Canadian state, speak- 
ing only the French language, and at- 
tached to the theories in church and 



state that prevailed in France under the 
Bourbon kings. In effect my lord says 
they are incapable of progress, and in 
this he is mistaken. They do readily 
amalgamate with the American people 
and become industrious and thrifty citi- 
zens. Those living here did their duty 
in the war for the Union according to 
their numbers. They are fast .drifting 
into the current of American progress 
and American civilization. Like their 
English. Scotch and Irish neighbors in 
the Dominion, they like the wages which 
they can earn under the star spangled 
banner; and of that 2,400,000 of French 
descent 800,000 or fully one-third have 
already crossed the border and united 
their individual fortunes with those of 
the Great Republic, a method of annexa- 
tion thus far mutually aavantageous. 
Besides the French, Canada contains in 
round numbers a quarter of a million 
Germans, as many more Scotch and a 
million each of Irish and English. Of 
these many are outwardly loyal to the 
British connection because they think it- 
will continue, but in their hearts their 
ideal is to belong to the great American 
commonwealth and partake of its pros- 
perity. The ancestors of many of them 
now living in Nova Scotia. New Bruns- 
wick and Ontario once lived in Massa- 
chusetts and New York. They, too, are 
coming every day to better their condi- 
tion. These people make good citizens 
and after annexation in half a generation 
will become thoroughly Americanized. 
Self perservation is the first law of na- 
ture and of nations, and in obedience to 
that law America cannot permit any 
great and hostile military power to be 
erected in Canada. 

Annexation must come and continental 
unity will be achieved. War, if Canada 
or England choose to bring it on, will 
hasten that result. I have no great con- 
fidence in the statesmanship of the "ripe 
plum" theory of annexation, that Canada 
when ripe will drop into the lap of the 
Republic. I am inclined to believe that 
only by war will it be brought about. 
European states unite only as a result of 
war, peaceful unions do not take place. 
If it must be by war, the more sparse the 
population the less the resistance. "We 
want no conquored Polands" it is often 
said. Senator Hoar says British Colum- 
bia contains about 60,000 inhabitants or 
less than two wards of the city of Bos- 
ton, certainly not a very populous Po- 
land. We want no people within the 
Republic against their will; we want no 
hostile territory adjoining us without, 
upon which England or any other power 
can hold pistols or point Krupp cannon 
at our heads. 

If in 1861 there was good reason why 
no rival nation should be built up in the 
South, there is the same reason now why 
no hostile power should threaten us on 



AMERICAN UNITY OH BRITISH DOMINATION r 



11 



the north. If it would have been a 
stupid thing for this English speaking 
people to establish a new row of custom 
houses from the Potomac to the Rocky 
Mountains, so now it is unwise to con- 
tinue the one already estabiished a few 
hundred miles further north. If it was 
worth the price we paid to preserve the 
Union of the people and states from St. 
Paul to the Gulf of Mexico then it is 
of vital importance to secure American 
unity from Duluth to the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence, from the Golden Gate to Sitka 
and from the place where we are today to 
the Arctic zone. 

Between this country and Canada 
separation leads to ignorance; ignorance 
begets hatred; hatred will in time breed 
hostilities. Thus far circumstances have 
prevented this result. In spite of our 
separation for over a century — in spite of 
the recent fooling with edge tools on the 
part of Canadian officials — in spite of the 
threats in the Canadian Senate that our 
Atlantic cities would hear "the voice of 
British cannon" and the intimation of 
the London press that behind Canadian 
cannon we shall find British gun boats, 
we have retained our good humor and the 
people of both countries have remained 
good friends. But we cannot expect this 
state of things always to continue. 

Whenever England shall again attempt 
to use Canada as twice before she has — in 
the Revolution and in 1812— as a base of 
operations against this country and 
force the issue of war upon us, our whole 
people north and south, east and west, 
will strike for continental unity as the 
only safe defence from such an attack. 
Our sons, if worthy of their sires, will 
continue our work. While we fought to 
prevent the destruction and disintegra- 
tion of the American Union, they will 
fight to add to it and build it up — for 
American unity — as did Robert Rogers 
and Stark and Washington and our an- 
cestors before the Revolution. Our sons 



w ill complete what the Revolutionary he- 
roes were compelled to leave unfinished, 
the total emancipation of the North 
American continent from British domin- 
ion. 

Unlei-s, when the supreme moment 
comes, we are not better prepared for 
defence than now, the war will be un- 
necessarily prolonged and our loss of 
life and treasure needlef-sly great. Can- 
ada would be crushed again and ag:ain 
between the upper and the nether mill- 
stones, and, if in the end we won, as I be- 
lieve we should, however desperate and 
long-continued the fighting, England 
would come out of the contest shorn of 
her glory forever, Canada a part of the 
United States, her other colonies inde- 
pendent, Ireland free and India trans- 
ferred to the czar, whose "winter palace" 
would then be found on the banks of the 
Bosphorus. 

Comrades, if I have spoken to you more 
of the future possible wars of the Repub- 
lic, than of the past, it is because I look 
upon you, not as men whose work is fin- 
ished, but as citizens alive to the welfare, 
of our country, who have dearly earned 
the right to a voice in its affairs. 

Canada is necessary to our national de- 
fence. If England would have the moral 
support and sympathy of her first born, 
let her cease her display of military 
strength upon our borders and terminate 
the standing menace of her occupation of 
Canada ; let her deal fairly by us on the 
seas and, at least toward us, drop her old 
time buccaneering swagger. Sometime, 
sooner or later, England's hour of peril 
may come. It would be safer for her to 
trust the natural affection of a proud and 
powerful people than blindly seek to 
fetter and bind the great leviathan of the 
west with her marine cables and her 
military railways, her battle ships and 
her fortified strongholds. 

The manifest destiny of this country is 
to control this continent. 



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